Critical thinking on the existence of God

Hey, Tuna...You're a philosopher, eh? Do a homey a favor if ya don't mind, eh? Go the the "assault on science" thread and read the last few posts (or, if ya wanna take the time, maybe the last 2-3 pages).

Then make some kinda comment, if ya got any.

I'm havin trouble gettin through to some of the half-wits there, ya know? I figure it's cause I aint sayin it in some kinda philosophical way.

Yep. That makes sense. It was toward the end of his life that he came clean about what he really thought of Christianity.

A lot of his writings are through personas, so I'd agree that at a party, it's probably a persona we'd be seeing. He said once that he longed to find a confidant he could tell all his secrets to, but he was afraid he'd have to kill such a person afterward.

Are you saying he was disgusted by his own expertise at creating facades?

In the meantime, how about some brilliant philosophical musings from the Natch, eh?

Naw, that aint really what I'm sayin. Another way to look at it. Suppose he had just kinda isolated himself with one other person and had an intimate conversation during the party. Maybe then he would want to shoot himself, eh?

Sartre, as I recall, talked about a guy, on his knees, looking through a keyhole. He kinda described his state of mind, and all.

Then, suddenely, this perv notices that some other person has quietly approached and is watching him peeping. What Sartre mighta called, "the look looking," or some crap like that. But that aint the point. Point is, now, suddenly the state of mind of this perv is drastically altered, know what I'm sayin?

I don't know what to say on that thread, dude.

I think the thread got swamped with a climate change debate when Setanta wanted to talk about people who are more directly opposed to science itself. I don't think there really are very many people like that. If a US citizen goes to a Voodoo practitioner, it's probably not that he's opposed to science. It's that he can't afford a lawyer and he knows he's going to be profiled because of the way he looks. He's looking for magic because he doesn't have any other resources. He probably doesn't even believe in voodoo, but you know... maybe.

That's just a social problem that comes from the fact that we don't live in freakin' Star Trek. We live in the USA.

Well he did say that this post (of mine) was the kinda thing he wanted to talk about, eh?:

.

He just can't see that that's what I'm talking about. Even when these alarmists want to make it into a "debate" about the validity of the IPCC, or whatever.

Even when I posted that Moore video, for you, it was about that---but maybe you didn't see it that way.

Point was this here: As I recall we agreed that c02 contributed to warming. You then talked about the need for a solution. I then suggested that maybe no solution was called for. You then implied (or so I thought) that the need for a solution was obvious.

The underlying assumption seemed to be that any warming was NECESSARILY bad. So I posted the Moore video. It's possible, at least, that some warming would actually be good.

And I wondered why you might think that warming was per se bad. I figured that it was probably because that's what the propaganda you hear always assumes. And, of course, the science behind that propaganda is SETTLED--absolutely and indubitably true.

Yep. I'm a big cartoon fan and he is one of my (many) favorites.

Dear Olivier5, have we exchanged thoughts before?

I was just looking over my posts and came upon your post in this thread, see Annex below; and I notice that you are the last poster to leave a message in it.

So, as I like to get people to exchange thoughts with me, I said to myself that I owe you a reply, though rather late, still better late than never.

Okay, the thread is on "Critical thinking on the existence of God."

I have come to the idea that critical thinking must first and foremost and before anything else be grounded on critical premisses,* and what are to my own thinking, the critical premisses of critical thinking?

Here, there are three, at this point in time, from my thinking, namely:

1. The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.
2. Existence can be from oneself or from another.
3. Existence can be in one's mind and/or in the objective reality outside and independent of any human mind.

So, just in case you notice that I have presented these premisses in my other posts, you are correct; and it is because I see them to be most essential for people to adopt, in order to talk sense, instead of nonsense.

There, dear readers here, I have bumped up this thread to the top of my list of posts from yours truly, and hope that some colleagues here will come forward for talking with me, on my fundamental and thus critical premisses essential with the practice of critical thinking.

On the other hand, I also know that a lot of folks here to my notice abstain from exchange of thoughts with me, because, as Max puts it, I insult people.

Well, that is his judgment on me, and he is to my assessment not capable of critical thinking at all - see? another insult from me to him!


*Premisses | Define Premisses at Dictionary.com
www.dictionary.com/browse/premisses
(logic) Also premiss. a statement that is assumed to be true for the purpose of an argument from which a conclusion is drawn. verb (prɪˈmaɪz; ˈprɛmɪs) 2. (when transitive, may take a clause as object) to state or assume (a proposition) as a premise in an argument, theory, etc.

Annex

Bookmark!

Noted!

But dear Centrox, I wished you would take to exchange of thoughts with me, I will promise to not insult you at all.

But you know, people do not know that ad hominems are not insults at all, but an alert to a poster to examine himself, that he might not be into cogntive matters, but into personal gripes, grudges, vanities, anything but of no relevancy in term of cognitive profit for all parties in an exchange of thoughts.

bkmark

So you won't take it amiss if I write "you are a wanker"?

I feel it, but I dissimulate my feeling, and channel it into critique of folks who have nothing to contribute but their vain name dropping and plus vain technical terms dropping.

Now, Centrox, tell me what you think about this statement from me:
"The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence."

Please do your very own personal thinking, no name dropping and plus no technical terms dropping, otherwise you have entrapped yourself into a bot template, without any conscious intelligence, but just spewing dead inanimate data.

Now, back to your telling me how I would react if you call me a wanker, I say I feel it because I am not a bot, you see that, don't you?

I am curious, in what time zone are you? Tell me in advance or behind Greenwich? I am in a time zone that is eight hours in advance of Greenwich.

Thanks for interacting with me, I like that because that is the joy of exchange of thoughts in a web forum.

This is the best web forum for my purpose, so far, from all the web forums I have been into.

It is truly non-partisan, without any agenda but to enable folks to share among themselves their thoughts, to their mutual advancement in knowledge of reality.

I hope you will think up some input to my statement, "The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence."

I think it is a word-soup way of expressing a tautology (a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form), namely "a thing is a thing".

...a word soup is a word soup!...

I like it if it has words like 'chicken' and 'noodles'.

You say, dear centrox:
"I think it is a word-soup way of expressing a tautology (a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form), namely "a thing is a thing."

Let you and me not end there, dear centrox.

Let us continue.

Now, you say that an example of a tautology is "a thing is a thing."

Is that example exactly the same as this other example from yours truly:
"The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence."

Dear readers here, let us sit back and await to witness with bated breath what or how centrox will react to my request to him, namely, to tell me what is the difference between these two examples of tautology:

1. From centrox: A thing is a thing.
2. From Susmariosep: The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

Bookmark n+1

From me:
"Dear readers here, let us sit back and await to witness with bated breath what or how centrox will react to my request to him, namely, to tell me what is the difference between these two examples of tautology:

1. From centrox: A thing is a thing.
2. From Susmariosep: The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence."


Would you all readers here, take the challenge to think on that request from yours truly?

I will give you a hint.

Do you recall that I am always telling you guys that things in existence can be in your mind and/or also outside your mind and independent of your mind?

Go, work on my request above, the difference between centrox' example of a tautology and Susmariosep's example of a tautology:

1. From centrox: A thing is a thing.
2. From Susmariosep: The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

A guy here got a thread deleted, on that account, with introducing a new thread that one then quite quickly deleted, scil., "My cognitive adventure with Layman," where there is a discussion on my example of a tautology, above, and Layman's two examples of tautology, namely:
Red is red.
What exists is what exists.

Happy and yes I hope productive thinking!